Monday, 21 September 2009

Arsenal's "cheating" is mega exposed but how come our mega "sportsmanship" is often ignored?

If you believe what you have read recently then you would think that Arsenal are a load of cheating bastards. Not the type of bastards who cheat on their missus but the type who cheat on the football pitch.

Say you came from Mars, just landed in England and developed an interest in football you would probably reckon that Eduardo invented the dive and that Eboue thinks he is the new Maradona.

I admit that Eduardo made the most of his incident, he went down easier than Paris Hilton does but Eboue's latest "cheat storm" is that he tried scoring with a volley-ball tactic only seen on Eurosport at three in the morning.

I know for a fact that Eboue DIDN'T try to cheat the other day because I did the same last week in my own football match! SHOCK SHOCK HORROR! WRIGHTY7 IN CHEAT STORM! Why did I do it? It was just instinctive. I wasn't trying to score, I just did it. I think it was because I couldn't be arsed to get the ball when it went off.

Now I know that Arsenal have ball-boys but perhaps Eboue went back to the playing days of his youth and just did what was instinctive. Trying to catch the ball because he couldn't be bothered to get it. We know he can be lazy. Wait a minute.....that's Song. My mistake.

Eboue may seem a little bit of a doughnut at times but I don't think that he is daft enough to replicate Maradona.............

Anyway, what I'm getting at is that Arsenal don't "cheat" or "simulate" anymore than any other club but of course when they do it is highlighted more than Manuel Almunia's hair. Why? Fuck knows but I'm certain that we show more sportsmanship than anyone else.

How many clubs would offer to play a match again because of an unfair goal? I'm going back a few years but remember Arsenal V Sheffield United in the FA Cup? We offered to to replay the match because United were harshly done by. Would anyone else have done that?

Last season Andrei Arshavin showed true sportsmanship when he was felled in the box against Portsmouth only to get up and wag his finger at the ref indicating it was no foul. Did we hear about that for days? Fuck no.

I suppose this is the day and age we live in but people must remember the good as well as the bad. Arsenal are more sporting than Sporting Lisbon. We are a great club with great tradition and if I see those little fellas from Mars then I will let them know that fact.

Actually, i thought it was more of a momentum thing. I thought he used his arms to propel himself to jump, and the ball hit his arm. It happens sometimes. Who was it last weekend that gave away such a foolish penalty? A Hull city player, I think. Was he trying to cheat in his own penalty box? No way

I thought he was genuinely attempting to head the ball. after he handballed it he admitted it straight away to the ref and took his booking in good humour. I didn't badly of Eboue. dont get me wrong the boy knows how to dive and I hate that from him, but I didn't think badly of him on saturday.

let us stop all this talking about cheating or no cheating.Arsenal players have cheated before they will cheat now and they will cheat in future as will Manure players,as will Drogba and chelsea players etc.The real hypocrites are the one slamming Eboue for his antics at Old toilet and then vindicating him for his antics against wigan,let us face it, Eboue is cheating scum and as long as wenger chooses to play him he is approving it even though he talks a lot different in public.

all this attention proves just one thing..whatever anyone says, its just plain a fact that arsenal are the greatest club in the world any everyone wants a part of it..even if its just words!! arsenal for life..wish they had won agains't united though..

Can we please start banning Danish Gooner from sites like this one and redirect him to the Spuds' sites, where he belongs? Despite his name and occasional use of the word "we" when referring to Arsenal, he has never uttered one postitive word on any of the numerous posts I've read on loads of sites. He is not a Gooner.

What I want from all our players is an attitude, an approach to the game, a mindset if you will. Football teams are measured on results and they are paid very well to do their job. They must behave like a band of soldiers commited to taking the hill, or taking ground from the enemy, winning against their direct opposition.

They score one goal, we score two, they score 3 we score 4. Its a job and the mindset of the WHOLE team must be to "get the immediate job done" week in week out, regardless of whom we play. Dont think ahead past the game that is in front of you, focus on each challenge and GET THE JOB DONE.

do me a favour - he fuckin cheated. can you imagine if ronaldo did that, you'd go mental. such a bunch of hypocrites. it's not like eboue hasn't got form, he's cheated in virtually every game he's played for Arsenal. out of all the people to stick up for you pick him. what a plum you are.

This thing about “tactical and / or rotational fouling”, it astonishes me why is it that when Arsenal players attempt it they are always booked! Remember the last epl game against Man U last sean at Old Trafford (don’t get started on the “that is Old Trafford”). What Diame and the other bloke did on Saturday were always punishable but the referee “intentionally” and “knowingly” let them carry on. It is the same thing Fletcher did when Arsenal played Man U a couple of weeks ago. In the case of Fletcher it was much more blatant, and the referee was obviously biased towards Man U. I think the problem with EPL referees is their general bias against Arsenal which, I must say (and I am sorry to say this), as it is a general attitude that seems to come across from the EPL fans, commentators, FA, and the media, and perhaps more surprising from quite a large section of the Arsenal fans themselves. It is difficult to put a finger on it, but I tend to think it is racially motivated e.g. “johnny foreigners” who don’t like it up them (difficult to defend as many teams in the EPL employ foreigners), a “french team” with a french manager (the frictions of the english and the french has a very long history) who has succeeded against all odds (mind you no English manager has ever won the “EPL”, the most they have managed is the FA cup), a manager who seems to go against what the mainstream believe as how the game should be played or run (you can see this in most, if not all, commentaries be they from fans, football lovers, managers, players and the lot in England). One is sometimes compelled to think that the English (as much as they like to bring foreigners in the EPL, probably other walks of life?) do not like to see these foreigners succeed (or may they can succeed but not to exceed a certain limit). In the case of the “Lord Wenger” to borrow Tonny’s terminology who is french, it becomes even worse. In a way this attitude towards foreigners in England is almost understandable (understandable because I think many people in other countries behave similarly) but does not make it right. Also, do not forget, Arsenal has always had a difficult relationship with the establishment that runs the game in England. Sometimes this last reason seems to be overriding. Also, I have always wondered why no disciplinary actions or sanctions are taken against poor referees? Why players and managers are punished for the referee’s incompetence (e.g. because of pointing out that the referee was poor, which many are)? If referees were made accountable, they just may have to learn.

Tactical fouling just breaks up play and stops free flowing football – we saw it all the way through the Wigan game, and it was undoubtedly why Cesc was looking so miserable by the end of the match.

Adding the rotational element allows players not to be punished since a different player commits each foul.

This report to the FA by our great and glorious leaders comes just as the FA revealed that it has handed over to FIFA 15 cases which involve dodgy transfer deals between English and overseas clubs since January last year.

The problem with such a report is that one has no faith in the FA (and their “Quest” group who “audit transfers”) even to be able to spell Tottenham Hotspur let alone get the facts right. As for FIFA, an organisation riddled throughout its history with corruption and dubious dealings, – how can such an organisation investigate anything? (Mind you it will probably find the FA guilty and ban them for three matches, which would at least be amusing).

The FA are about to tell us what they will do about the fact that fans from all three sides of the West Iceland pitch invaded during the match, and they are still trying to decide if the big fellow who wanders around a bit for Manchester Arab should be hung drawn and quartered for goading Arsenal fans.

And they still won’t explain why they refuse to act on the same man’s attack on Cesc in the Arab / Arsenal game.

Meanwhile, not wanting to be left out, UEFA have now warned the Premier League that it must “face up to its financial responsibilities” whatever that means.

It seems the accumulated losses of the league are too high after it came out that a third of the teams had losses of at least 20% of their income.

That means we are not as bad as Romania, Ukraine, the Czech Republic and Poland. On this measure (profit or loss as a percentage of income) France and Germany do well.

The average income per club in the EPL seems to be £122m, while in Germany, Italy and Spain the average is around £75m. Put another way our clubs are bigger and make a bigger cock up of it all. I think we knew that.

UEFA now says clubs must break even on football business by 2012 or be thrown out of something (presumably the Champions League and Europa Cup). The EPL have agreed that any club that gets into a financial mess (which presumably means 80% of them) will be taken over by the EPL and refused the right to buy any players or raise salaries.

Of course this won’t affect the clubs who are owned by individuals who will simply put more money in, temporarily, around the check-up date of March 31, and then take it out again. It is a bit like not getting boozed out of your mind on the night before you see the GP for a check up. Doing so just makes it harder to pretend that you only drink half a glass of wine a night with your meal.

Of course if they did make this really take effect then it would be more interesting…

Here’s a list of just how much Liverpool lost year on year in the transfer market (all figures are pounds sterling)

2000: 24.75m 2001: 0.46m 2002: 13.5m 2003: 8.5m 2004: 15.75m 2005: 20.65m 2006: 19.5m 2007: 46.75m 2008: 19.55m Now during the course of this spend-spend-spend policy the club were bought by the Americans, and the £350m borrowed from the banks for the purpose of building a new stadium, was immediately used to fund the purchase.

In 2009 for the first time this century the club actually earned money in transfers – £7m to be precise. It is a start – but not quite enough to keep the EPL happy.

So will the FA charge the big guy who runs about a bit with assault on Cesc? Will FIFA prove to be a fit and proper agency to investigate dodgy transfers? Will the FA take action to stop tactical fouls? Will UEFA throw Liverpool Insolvency out of the Champs League? Will the EPL sort out club finances? Errrr…..

You and your fellow dinosaurs go and watch football in Scotland, Ireland or Sunday pub teams! It a mans games, he got the ball didn't he etc. - these are not the rules of football - just poor lower league interpretation off! Watch the lower leagues - stop ruining out excellent top division despite your lack of understanding of the finer points of the game. The real reason England fell behind the international games is because we did not play football like every else. We were not technical. Since the premiership started, we got rid a lot of foreign celts (not English in this context) and replace by more cultured technical players whom played a more modern and widely adopted game (except in the olde fashioned British Isles of course). Since then most of our 41% of English players (the same as before the premiership) now play good with technical skills and modern game tactics. So the top team from world cup qualifiers contained no less that 6 out of 11 players!!!! Yes thank you Mr Wenger you have helped England massively. 1-0 Arsenal or now? Hard choice. England before foreign managers (shudder) or now with a real chance of doing something serious. 3 English teams out the 4 semi-finalists of the Champions league or none. Mark you are seriously and hopelessly deluded. If you want that type of game, watch the SPL, League of Ireland of the Lower leagues - don't ruin the top league in the world with you backwardness. Get your head out of the sand. Persist

He's had a few bad games but he does his job really well when he's on top of his game. Granted, Song doesn't chase the ball around as much as he can but I don't think that's down to laziness. Lazy was that striker-Thing last season who wouldn't track back or Abou Diaby who looks like he's sleep-walking most of the time.

I think Eboue's hand-ball was a reflex. We'd hope that he wouldn't be that daft and I don't think he is. I highly doubt that Eboue would go "oh sweet, maybe I'll slap the ball into the net while the goalkeeper, ref and all the defence and staring right at me".

We do get a lot of stick for whenever we commit any sort of small offence. I think all this goes back to Wengers ability > passports policy.

"do me a favour - he fuckin cheated. can you imagine if ronaldo did that, you'd go mental. such a bunch of hypocrites. it's not like eboue hasn't got form, he's cheated in virtually every game he's played for Arsenal"

Don't be stupid. When Eboue dove against United, all the Arsenal fans I know were furious. If Eboue scored while pulling that stunt, I'm sure that he would've been booed off of the pitch. And if he wasn't you would'nt have any of us defending him. That sort of behaviour is disgusting.

However, he didn't cheat. Even some of the commentators thought the ref had gone a bit over-board with the card.

There have been some excellent points made here about tactical fouling. What about that? Arsenal try and break up play, they get a card. Other teams run about beating our players (Celtic were the worst offenders, United, Wigan)and they get nothing. How is that fair?

That body language can indeed account for 70 to 80 percent of communication, I believe too many people have misinterpreted the humility Cesc showed upon scoring the fourth goal for something that, imho, is simply not there but helps give weight to (yawn) tabloid gossip. Only a couple of yards away from goal & a reactionary training ground back-heel as opposed to an intentional, venomous pile-driver or considered lob, he merely showed why he's captain of The Arsenal & a fantastic role model. In an instant he made a statement of intent for his band of brothers 'Nowt to get carried away with boys, we've simply done our job'. With no disrespect to Wigan, who I like as they look to play good football, MUFC & CFC would expect to beat them 3 or 4 zip @ home without fuss. From what I could see, his reaction was borne of genuine humility & respect for fellow professionals along with quick thinking & cleverness following Adebayors contrasting behaviour of the previous week, nothing more, nothing less. I'm of the opinion that Cesc does not crave being the 'Star Player' as such but rather being in a team full of star players & the one responsible for them producing star performances, like Denis Bergkamp. On Adebayor, I don't think he should receive a ban for the celebration as he didn't breach any rules. Warned as to his future conduct & fined a few quid but no more than that. What's being lost in translation is that he didn't want to leave Arsenal, hence acting like a guy just dumped by his girlfriend & pretending he's not bothered whilst his actions say otherwise. We as Arsenal fans should close this chapter & acknowledge he had the ability to be the best target man going but lacked the mentality to achieve it & or prevent himself disappearing up his own backside.

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I tend not to drop a lot of comments, but i did some searching and wound up here "Arsenal's "cheating" is mega exposed but how come our mega "sportsmanship" is often ignored?".And I actually do have a couple of questions for you if you do not mind. Could it be simply me or does it look like a few of the comments come across like left by brain dead individuals? :-P And, if you are writing on other places, I'd like to follow everything new you have to post. Would you list of every one of your shared sites like your linkedin profile, Facebook page or twitter feed?